Recurring Steve
by Memory25
Summary: They say that you learn from experience. I guess that's why Captain America is perfect. SI/OC insert
1. Chapter 1

**This is just a short idea that I've been playing around with. I'm not really sure if I'm going to continue it, because so far it looks like a short story to me...And I'm not too sure how to continue it anyway. There'll probably be one or two more chapters to this, but that's if I ever get around to finishing it. I'd just like to put it out and see what you guys think, I guess. **

* * *

Returning to life was painful. They say that to feel pain is to know you live, and that to live is much harder than to die.

She believes them now.

Where once she had peace and darkness as her companions, she now faced fire in her lungs, aches in her bones, and the certainty that her body had been reshaped wrong.

She couldn't muster the strength to cry, only weep quietly when urged. Putting her to her mother's breast was confusing, and then frustrating when she couldn't suckle enough.

Her ears didn't work properly, she could only hear muffled voices and buzzing. Her eyes were sealed shut, but even the darkness she felt was her friend had been intruded upon—the true black turned to murky non-black.

And worst of all, was the scorching heat on her skin.

The period of time she was laid out on the cot was distressingly stifling. Swaddled in cotton, unable to do more than fidget, she cursed this newfound life. As a baby, she longed to do more than cry, but that was all that was afforded her.

And then.

Her chest hitched.

Her voice sputtered out.

Her limbs stilled.

xXXx

She returned again, just as painfully as the first.

The air clawed at her throat and her first breaths were more akin to a death rattle. A few tears leaked as she felt her body tell her that, again, it was wrong wrong wrong.

Suckling was easier the second time round. There was a method to it in order to compensate for her lack of strength. She managed a decent enough serving and didn't protest when they laid her down on the cot.

But the air was as hot and stifling as ever.

Another unknown period of time passed and she was bundled into her mother's arms, away from the sharp scented place. To…_home, _she guessed. A sour-smelling, even _more _stifling place than the previous one. She didn't think the heat could get any worse, but _of course_ it could.

The story of Icarus. Flying too close to the sun and falling into the ocean.

She wondered if boiling up and dying would be the same as that.

xXXx

It took some time to gain enough awareness of her surroundings to realize that the body she had been given was the wrong gender.

She wasn't sure how to deal with this, this further evidence that fate was trying to screw her over, and so she ignored it. She's worn pants before, underwear was generally similar, and if she could now pee standing up, then pee standing up she would.

When she could finally stand, of course.

Crawling was exhausting. _Learning_ to crawl had been exhausting. Shuffling around and clinging to mother was exhausting.

Doing anything with her broken body was exhausting. Was this what she was meant to do for life?

Air never got easier to breathe, and moving felt like her joints should creak loudly to express their disgruntlement.

Sometimes, air got worse and then she had to curl into a ball and tell herself to _breathebreathebreathe _because not-breathing hurt more and she had to keep calm and move her lungs manually instead of panicking.

The doctor told her mother it was all in her mind.

She _knows _it's not. Her body may be broken but her mind is whole.

She's still telling herself to _breathebreathebreathe _when she _can't _and her broken body just…won't…listen.

She burns up without oxygen and drifts away into cool darkness.

xXXx

To return again.

xXXx

And again.

xXXx

And _again._

xXxx

And she is now three years old with her mother singing her to sleep in the cooling air, taking measured breaths and carefully counting her heartbeats. It's tedious, tiring work, but it's worth it because now at least she knows the changing of the years and the turn of the season and that the heat leaves to coolness and the coolness changes to biting cold.

She's three years old and one day twice, three to four months five, and eight times two. She's three years old and twenty-two before and trying to make it to the years between.

But her broken body is a war she has to fight every single day. The not-breathing and the silent creaking and the tears from mother because her only boy is small and weak and useless.

She's three years old and twenty-two and she doesn't have time for the past because she has to live.

xXXx

She makes it to five years before her feet slip and smash her loose pieces apart on the roadside.

xXXx

Four years old.

xXXx

Three.

xXXx

Two.

xXXx

One day and one day and one day and one day. Because she can't take it anymore with this worthless body that stutters and breaks with the slightest breeze. She screams and screams and screams, louder than the other babies, a requiem wail.

And her heart gives out from the stress.

What do the fates _want _from her?!

xXXx

Eighteen one-days and she stops thinking. Suckles and lays down and does not mind the heat.

It's seven months when she dies, convulsing because she couldn't be bothered to tell herself to breathe.

xXXx

The next go she decides to be careful again. Be careful because she wants to see past five. Be careful because living hurts, but there must be ways to ease the pain.

She learns how to breathe through air that gets stuck in her throat, how to move gently without creaking, how to make mother smile.

She learns that her hands are cleverer than before and that they can put what she sees onto paper. And that what she sees now is more beautiful than what she saw.

She's five years old and living hurts, but she can draw.

She draws her mother's smile.

xXXx

She's five and a half when she dies, choking in her mother's arms.

xXXx

Four years old and this time around, she starts talking. Her mother sings to her and calls her Stevie and loves it when she laughs.

Laughing hurts too.

She talks to mama and mama tells her things. She talks to mama and mama tells her about papa.

Papa is a soldier in a war far, far away.

She tells mama not to cry and mama calls her her darling little boy.

She makes it to six this time.

xXXx

Every time she returns it hurts. Every time she breathes it hurts. It doesn't get better but she learns not to be afraid.

Darkness and peace are friends, but they are not meant to last.

She wonders what happens when she lives to twenty-two but shudders away from it because she might have been born with a broken body, but she needs to keep her mind intact and the disappointment might be the last straw.

xXXx

She's eight when she meets Bucky.

Bucky, Bucky, Bucky Barnes. He bumps into her one day and sends her sprawling (_but not smashed) _and picks her up and smiles. Then he sees her doing laundry and decides to help.

They go to school together, eat lunch together, play together.

It's the best feeling she has ever had.

xXXx

She's nine when the bullies start picking on her. For being too girly, too small, too useless. And she's only got a ma and no da to scare them off.

Bucky runs in between them with a roar.

She's so touched, she kisses him without thinking.

He blinks and turns bright red and tells her she can't be the princess but he'll keep saving her anyway.

She's almost angry that she's a boy.

xXXx

She's ten when they corner her without him and hit one time too hard.

xXXx

She meets Bucky at seven the next round, helping mama out with the sweeping.

She wants to help mama more, because she's been nothing but good to her. Mama says seven is too early to help wash clothes, but picking up the broom and moving it around is easy enough. So she grabs it and goes outside and—there he is.

He smiles at her and shakes her hand and says, "Hi there, I'm Bucky Barnes."

She beams at him and grips his hand and replies, "Nice to meet you, I'm Steve Rogers."

When the bullies come again, she roars louder than Bucky. She dies thrice but learns how to dodge and weave and strike. She gets cornered near a dumpster and throws the trash can lids at their heads.

The bullies don't really stop, but Bucky's got her back and she's got his now.

xXXx

She can't seem to reach ten years old, but it's not so bad.

She's got mama and now Bucky who always stays with her, no matter how she acts, what age she is, or how useless she gets. Bucky whom she meets at eight and seven and six and five, a dozen and one times again and again. Bucky who smiles and picks her up, Bucky who grins and plays with her, Bucky who's always got her back, her front, her side and never leaves.

She hit Bucky once out of frustration, but he came back the next day.

She never hits Bucky again.

xXXx

She's doodling in school at six years old when Bucky comes up to her and says, "That's real good."

It's their first meeting again and it's different this time, but it's still the same smile that they share. Hers wet and grateful and stretching from ear to ear, his easy and joyful and open. She looks at her drawing and gives it to him and he keeps it in his pocket.

She starts drawing more.

And suddenly, she's got mama and Bucky and _drawing _in this life, and she's turning eleven tomorrow.

xXXx

She's fifteen when enlistment campaigns start. The telly in Old Mister Thompson's apartment blares on about honor and justice and fighting for America. She's fifteen when Bucky proclaims that he wants to help fight too and that he'll enlist once he's old enough.

She's sixteen when ma dies, shivering from a breeze no one can feel, leaving her with her high school certificate in hand. Mama Barnes takes her in like she's one of them, and Bucky shares his room with her. She draws and draws and Bucky helps her get into Art School.

Bucky goes to war when they're seventeen and never comes back.

She closes her eyes when they get the letter.

They don't open again until she returns.

xXXx

She's six this time and avoiding Bucky. She stays at home as much as possible and when she's at school she clings to the corners. She ducks and weaves and runs, but this time it's Bucky she's going up against.

He catches her one day and no matter what she does, he follows.

She slips on the bridge on a rainy day and he jumps in too, but it's too late and there's water in her lungs.

As she blinks and resigns herself to not-breathing, her face gets wet from not-rain.

It's the first time in so long that she struggles to fight the encroaching darkness. She gasps and clenches her tiny fists and digs in her heels and—Bucky is right there holding on to her.

She's six and she tried to avoid Bucky but couldn't, and for the first time, she fights against her impending death and wins.

She's still blinking and reeling when her fourteenth birthday comes.

xXXx

They're eighteen and ma's gone and Bucky's joining the war. They're seventeen again and she decides that she isn't going to be left behind. If she can fight with Bucky, she will.

She's shorter than everyone else by at least a head, but surely, they have _something _for her to do?

She's skinny and useless and Steve Rogers from Brooklyn gets a big red 4-F stamp. They don't need her, and she's worthless even as cannon fodder.

She stands at the station and can't bear to wave Bucky goodbye.

She dies before his letter comes.

xXXx

They're fifteen and she's watching the telly with him again. And then—there's a short newsreel that she's never seen before.

She knows about the Nazis, remembered their stories from a life long ago, and hears the talk from her present life neighbours.

Yes, they killed Bucky and the rest of the boys who left, but until then she'd always thought it was just War—you fought them because they were on the other side, not because they were evil.

But now she sees them ransacking Europe and killing people and she sees the Japanese digging their bayonets into pregnant women and _remembers_. She briefly wonders about TV ratings but that's not the issue—this whole war was because Hitler and Japan wanted more than they had and saw what they wanted in other countries. It's just plain greed and the average German soldier was probably not to blame for the whole thing, but they're trying to take what's not theirs and it's just like those bullies again. She's as American as everyone else here even though people make fun of her ma and da being Irish. She's got just as much to lose as they do if the Axis Powers hit here.

So she's going to fight, even if she doesn't want to kill. She's going to fight and protect her stake here and protect Bucky and all the American children.

She also thinks that she wouldn't mind gutting those Japs with a knife so much—see how they like it.

It's the first time she tries to join the army before Bucky.

It's the first time she tries to join more than once.

It's her fourth time and she's Steve Rogers from Ohio when she meets Dr. Erskine.

* * *

**Not a really polished piece because it's really something that came up on the fly. I read Avengers but writing it...I'll never do enough research to properly understand it I guess. And I don't follow the comics and I haven't even watched the movies. *facepalm***

**But tell me what you think? Or if anyone'd want to use the idea...**

**Memory25**


	2. Chapter 2

**Woah, looks like this ideas catching on after all. Hmm...Still no promises, since I have no clue where this could go. I'm just running through the timeline, really. ^^ **

**I tried out an accent in the first part but it didn't quite catch. Steve talks a little less perfectly when she's relaxed I guess? But it didn't really continue but I still left it there anyway because it kind of fit the mood. :P**

* * *

She starts sometimes as a dancing monkey going on tour around the country. Answering to Captain America and wearing clothes that cling to her thighs—to everything, really. She has to wear a cup down there because she's big all over now, and sometimes it makes her wish she were a girl.

Not as often, since being a man is a lot easier here. And she can fight as a man. Besides, if she were on tour as a girl, she'd be gussied up like the chorus gals and she's not sure she'd be able to stand it. They already put loads of that pancake stuff on her face when she goes on, but it's nothing compared to the amount the gals put on. And the clothes are, are tiny and sparkly and nothing a proper lady should wear.

Then again, the gals aren't exactly proper ladies. Well, not in the same sense as what people usually mean. If they'd been born just a little later in the time she'd been a she, they'd not only fit right in, they'd be a lot better than most. But they weren't, so they've got to deal with the men who grab them and whistle or call them tarts and harlots. She tries to watch out for them, sorta like a brother would even though she's 'younger' than them, because she remembers the days before Buck and knows what it's like. But she can't watch all of them at once, so sometimes there's a scuffle.

They're all actually real nice and sweet gals. If you ignored their language.

Most of 'em are orphans or as good as, 'cause there ain't hardly gonna be a ma or pa who'd let their little girl go on stage dressed like that. Or go on stage at all, since it isn't a respectable sorta job. They're all real pretty, but then again, it's a requirement to go on stage. None of them've got a boy in the army or back home. Say it's not realistic and such.

And yeah, they've offered a tumble a couple times.

It isn't that she's a prude or that she's a she or anything, but it's not how her ma raised her. You don't tumble into bed with a gal you're not gonna marry because that's disrespectful. It doesn't matter whether she offered or you asked, but you don't treat women like something you can use and discard. She's been a woman and thought sex was nothing, that her body was hers to do as she pleased.

But ma's right.

Sex isn't…It's not something you do with just anyone. You can't be that close with someone and then get up the next day with a 'thank you, goodbye' and walk out the door. When you have sex with someone, you leave a piece of yourself with them. If you keep whoring around, you'll end up dead inside 'cause even though you've cheapened it, you still leave a piece behind.

Ma said it better. She isn't as clever with words as she used to be, probably because they were exchanged for drawing fingers. But she understands what she meant. She ain't ever gonna do that with someone she don't love. It ain't about marriage or being proper, it's about feelings.

But it's not like she'll begrudge the gals their choice. They're all hardened and jaded by life, and a stage gal's life ain't the easiest. They've only got the time until they become too old or an accident happens that leaves a visible scar, and then they'll have to find another way to put food on the table. In a way, she's lucky she doesn't have to do that, though if she'd stayed as just a dancing monkey, she may have gone the same way.

Thing is, she never lets that happen.

Senator Brandt always offers her the dancing monkey job. She'd tried not taking the offer a few times and went through other means to join the fight.

She once entered the regular army the old way, but it never really lead anywhere and something kept telling her it was wrong. She went in as Private Rogers and made sergeant, but she entered a little late and she never found Bucky. When the news arrives that the 107th battalion went up against Schmidt and came out of it in tatters, she's still digging trenches and crawling across No Man's Land in her own battle. And the war never really ends and they keep losing until one day she and what's left of her unit are running through a forest and running out of rations and running out of ammo and they get sniped off one by one.

She tried taking the other offers from the other people involved in Project Rebirth. Those don't go so well.

Out of all the offers she got, Senator Brandt's was probably the most…clean. She's not sure why a smart man like him would want to put what's supposed to be a super_soldier_ on stage to do fancy acts when all he needed was a handsome face and maybe a few stage wires to hold up the motorcycle, but she'd never really asked. He was a _senator _after all. But being a dancing monkey was a lot better than being anyone's pet assassin or soldier or whatever else they wanted her to be.

She'd slapped herself over her naïveté when she figured not everyone she killed belonged to the other side. They'd just gotten in the way of whoever's offer she'd taken and made targets of themselves. She wasn't the most cunning person, and she'd never played the political game in her old life, but she learned fast and with the serum, she learned _fast._ She's never gonna let anyone use her like that again—waste Dr. Erskine's hard work and make a lie out of her vow to protect America.

So she took the dancing monkey offer, but kept in mind that this wasn't what she was gonna keep doing.

And then she overhears the news about Bucky, a few weeks earlier than when she was in regular camp, and she knows that this is it.

Convincing Peggy and Stark wasn't that easy. Peggy wasn't really impressed. She'd been the one to tell her that there were bigger things waiting for her, but she'd also been the one to see most of the stupidity she'd enacted and frankly, she wouldn't trust her either. Stark more so. He'd always been the one wondering why Erskine picked her and when she accepted the senator's offer, he'd been pretty disgusted. Said stuff about being brainless and a waste. Not that she didn't disagree.

But she wasn't gonna be the one to tell him what the other alternatives had been, and she'd never cared about what other people thought anyway.

In the end, all that mattered was that she was on her way to HYDRA and Bucky.

xXXx

Bucky always falls.

No matter what she does, Bucky always falls.

Off the mountain, off the railing, over a tree root and into the line of fire. Out the window of a building onto the burning roadside. Protecting her, protecting Dum Dum, protecting any one of the Howling Commandos. Protecting little children, women, and wounded civilians. He'd always been her hero, but she knows now that he's not just hers.

And that she can't be his at all.

She can't stop him from falling.

She's Captain America and big and strong and fast and _superhuman_.

But she can't keep him from falling.

She tried to but he never listens to her. She tried to but she never catches him. She tried to but they're outnumbered, outgunned, and she never sees it coming.

Even when she does in that split second of a moment just before, he falls anyway.

They're seven of them including her and barely enough and she only gets them six—just the Howling Commandos and her—and she can't do enough with seven to save him. She can barely do enough to keep all of them alive. She plans and plans and makes stuff up on the fly and tries to absorb most of the damage, but it isn't enough.

She tries and she tries but it isn't enough even she goes back again and again and again and again. Even though it's harder to die with her enhanced body and enhanced healing so she has to shoot herself in the head thrice and sometimes four times.

She's tried not being Captain America, tries not to let the stage name from before follow her. Maybe not having a conspicuous name would help. Maybe not donning the fancy target of a uniform would help.

But Captain America she must be or nothing.

Captain America is better than nothing, and so she is Captain America. It's always Captain America. Not Private Rogers. Not some other fancy name.

Captain because she's just smart enough to take command of them seven but not more. America because that's what she swore to protect, what she swears by, and nobody can tell her differently.

It's not all bad. The times before Bucky falls are almost happy. She spends more time with the SSR and Howard and _Peggy. _She gets a shield and then a new one that can bounce like a Frisbee and decides to put away the gun.

Peggy doesn't always shoot her, but she does often enough. She gets surprise-kissed by enough women that she's sort of resigned. And Howard's still a bastard enough to make fun.

She knows Peggy likes her _that way, _and it sounds so childish saying it like that but she doesn't know the line between adult and child anymore, not with the way she see-saws between them so often. She'd be tempted to say she's always adult now, but that's not true, there's a difference—she just can't tell anymore. But she's not sure how to respond because she feels something for her, but it's confusing because she's a she and she's always liked guys but now, apparently, Peggy too. Howard—the bastard—doesn't help because he just flirts with everyone and keeps nudging her and laughing.

Fucking _fondue. _

But she's always there when Bucky falls.

She never knows how to go on when Bucky falls. But then one time immediately after, when she's drinking and drinking in hopes she'd catch a break, Morita comes up behind her and thumps her on the back and goes, "Orders, Captain?" because he knows drink does nothing for her and she looks around and sees that she still has five others.

Bucky was the first and Bucky was the one who kept her sane through those first years.

But now she's in her second years so she guesses she can't have Bucky anymore.

She goes back one last time and watches him fall off the mountain just barely out of reach and then she curls back her outstretched hand and punches the guy who did it off. Then, she throws her shield at half a dozen of them hard enough to break bones.

Broken bones can kill. She doesn't care enough right now.

Then she goes back to camp and tells everyone.

And everyone comes over to give her a thump on the back in lieu of a beer and all five of them go, "Orders, Captain?" and she goes, "Let's finish those sorry sons of bitches."

Howard helps. Because Howard's a magnificent bastard, but he's also a friend. Somewhat. She doesn't know what's with all the hitting on her (and she _knows _he's hitting on her, she just plays the oblivious card, they could go to jail after all) but he's loyal. So he helps and they bang and clang their way to the base where she drives the first of many fists into Schmidt's red face.

The Red Skull is a slippery bastard though, and she still has men under her charge, so he gets away again and again. Sometimes it's her who gets away, but if she could just get that one chance…

But Schmidt's getting away _again _and she's alone this time. Wasn't going to let that happen the bastard is the reason so many are dead and like _hell_ if she's going to let him get away.

She kisses Peggy, salutes Colonel Philips, and runs with her heart pounding. It always pounds when she's going to die, it never stopped doing that.

She grabs for the blue thing in Schmidt's hands and he…breaks down, and the last of what she sees is exactly that colour.

She'll go back this time—she goes back even after she turns twenty-two—but at least Bucky'd be there to meet her again. She'll go back, kiss her mama, maybe even kiss Bucky, and make damned sure to survive killing Schmidt the next time.

xXXx

When the blue fades and she awakens, she knows she didn't die. It's a mess of disappointment and relief, but it's the same thing she's been going through for so long that she sweeps it aside easily.

She opens her eyes and the radio blares on about a baseball game that…you've got to be kidding her.

She parts her lips slightly and tastes the air and what do you know? She's not back home. It's not anywhere she's been either—not the mountains or the forests or camp or HYDRA—so she must've been captured by some idiot who managed to fish her up from the sea and thinks he's got himself a supersoldier.

Well he's got a supersoldier alright.

She blinks and sits up and scratches her head like she's dazed, but not really because it's easy enough to escape when they don't know to shackle her down with the strongest chains or drug her to the gills. It'll be easy enough to knock out or kill the guards with the little bare-hand Dum Dum taught her. One dozen, two dozen, it's all the same to her now. Only the Red Skull had been any different.

She wonders whether Peggy's looking for her. The only girl she kissed, and probably the only girl she could fall in love with.

The woman who enters is dressed like a nurse but the stitches in her uniform are strange. The fabric of the thing is right but not really—she knows because she's been in enough hospital camps to know. She used to give out the Purple Hearts, after all.

She tells her she's in Recovery, but that's obviously a lie. The words roll of her tongue too smoothly and she's too tensed to be a nurse. It's a little thing, being as ma was a nurse and she's visited hospitals before, but it's enough.

So she sighs and tells her to stop the charade. She's Captain America, but even as Steve Rogers she isn't stupid. She tells her to please stop and come clean ma'am or she'll have to hurt her because Captain America is a gentleman, but she has no qualms hitting enemies.

And of course, Miss Fake Nurse calls the guards—barely a dozen, really?—and it's time to get down to business. She chops at necks before they can aim their guns and the armour stings her hand a little more than usual but they go down all the same.

She debates picking up a gun just in case, but the thing looks strange and she already decided not to use guns unless she has no choice and right now, the moron who has her captive doesn't look like he merits one.

So she turns and jogs away instead.

xXXx

She's back in her time. In _her _time—the one before she was Steve. The memories of it are mixed now, but no question—she's in her past. Which is, apparently, the future.

The Howling Commandos are all dead. So she's lost not just Bucky, but all of them.

_Seventy years. _She's been frozen—they said she'd been frozen—for _seventy years. _It's ridiculous but that's what it is and she knows better than to say it's impossible. Dr. Erskine used to do the impossible every day. Howard could do it every other day, sometimes more when he wasn't busy flirting. (Flying cars. They still don't have it right now.)

(Seventy years. She's been picked up and dropped back by fate again. Seventy years. Everyone she knows is dead.)

The man who 'owns' her now (and she's not oblivious to the fact that she's someone's pet _again_) is Director Fury of SHIELD. The long version of the name is awkward, like someone really wanted to use the acronym, but she's not one to make fun when she's useless in naming things herself. She's also not completely ruling out the fact that Peggy started it and that might be one of her funny jokes again.

Peggy's dead now. Too.

Peggy started SHIELD, but obviously it has its own agenda now. There are a few who may be on her side, like Agent Coulson, but again, the people around her want her for something.

She remembers the fighting of the war as Sergeant Rogers and how it never ended. She's actually really tired of fighting now. Bucky's gone and the Commandos are gone and Peggy's gone and even Howard is gone. She swore to protect America but really, she knew she wanted to protect Buck first. And then the other guys and then Peggy but now…

Now they want her to protect an America who dropped bombs on Japan and fights proxy wars in other countries and entered a Cold War with the USSR—_Russia, now—_and elected a president for _two terms _who said 'Either you're with us, or you're against us'.

That's…

She wants to stop. Wants to rest and truthfully, wants to die for real. Doesn't want to keep coming back and returning to whatever this is that fate is keeping her here for. She's just a soldier, but Director Fury talks about saving worlds and Agent Coulson keeps calling her superhero. She's not even a hero. Not like Bucky.

Then they tell her about Anthony Stark, Howard's son. Like a grown man with his own life who she doesn't even know matters, just because she knew his father. Like it _means _something.

She knew Howard and he was a friend, yes, but she doesn't know _Anthony_ Stark.

But they tell her that they spent a lot of resources fishing her up from the sea and the ice and, yeah, that isn't even subtle. She's so frustrated and tired and _pissed off, _that she goes into the gym and breaks all their punching bags before she accidentally kills someone.

* * *

**So...thoughts? I'm kind of betting I made a lot of mistakes to canon because I haven't watched or read anything except some wiki pages. Either way, I hoped you guys enjoyed that. :)**

**Memory25**


	3. Chapter 3

**So I've managed to get out another chapter of RS. :) It's definitely an interesting plot device to play with, and putting myself in her perspective is a tricky challenge. What sort of person is Steve Rogers? What kind of person could uphold the image of Captain America _and _still stay true to him/herself? What kind of strength does that take? What kind of mannerisms and what sort of values does he/she hold? If I tried to be Captain America, I'd exhaust myself in a few minutes. I'm just not that well-meaning and moral. But the idea of _someone _who actually _is _all that just gives me a sense of incredulity only matched by the expression on my face. (My friend says it's freaked out. I maintain that it's just _disbelief.) _**

**It's fun, playing and trying to match personality to character. Steve is so different from me that I'm _definitely _making her out to be better than she really is. She's one of those one in a million, diamond in the rough, down-to-earth, suffering and yet still compassionate people that sound like they popped out of fairy tales. And yet, I want to connect with her, so I taper some edges and try to bridge the gap between realistic and idealistic. She's been through war so she _can't _be naive. She's polite because she's 1940s but that doesn't mean she doesn't know how to swear and is not tempted to. And so many other little nuances that make her Steve Rogers.**

**Well, I hope that I manage to capture the gist of Captain America. ^^**

* * *

After the haze of shock clears, she begins to take better note of her surroundings. She's had some experience with that, what with the repeated rebirths—heh Rebirth—and the numbing shock she still gets every time Bucky dies. A part of her has learnt to systematically catalogue the things she sees and hears for later use, but she admits that it's not infallible and that she missed a few things while adjusting to her situation. She's not the adaptable sort, it always takes her some time and a couple of reruns before she can wrap her head around something new. She's getting better at it, but it's baby steps all the way.

There's one pretty big difference here—she's never had superheroes back in her first life. There's no Iron Man or Fantastic Four or mutants. Just regular people with regular people problems.

Which had been big enough, being as George W. Bush existed and was just as lively as his counterpart here.

But this is a new thing, and it's a wonder that she's still taken by surprise. She's not _really _in the same time she used to live in. It's not _exactly _the same world. She'd been sort of going by the assumption that it was, but this threw a wrench into things. She has to struggle for a few days again, and even then she still feels uneasy.

Of course, when she reads the files SHIELD gives her and what little extremely regulated information she has access to, she learns about alternate worlds and parallel timelines and all that strange science fiction-esque stuff she only ever read in storybooks. So somewhere out there is the world she came from, and if she finds a mad enough scientist to try while she's in a mad enough frame of mind, she could—possibly—go there. Something to think about when she's down. Or feeling the creep of madness seeping in.

And then there are the aliens.

It's…she doesn't know whether to laugh or find the nearest convenient punching bag. It's like she's living in one big fantasy story. There are aliens of the generic 'rawr' and ugly fashion, but there are also aliens who look just like humans and are, apparently, gods. Small 'g' because there is only one God her ma taught her about and He certainly isn't some strange lunk in medieval armor clanking about in an overly loud voice. Or the other one with the horned helmet who's apparently the aforementioned's _brother. _

Yeah, she doesn't see the resemblance either.

Of course, their files read like some strange hooky adventure story, and what's worse is that they also have tags and attachments to them of Earth's own Norse mythology that they have laid claim to. Even she knows a little about the stories (she likes to read) and the like, but sweet Jesus, the things that they've been said to have done…

The worst part is that they're not the only ones whose files read like some twisted novella.

The good director wants her to lead a team 'to save the world'. He wants to put together a group of _superheroes _to defend the world.

Coincidentally, New York seems to be a big red target for such events.

As for the files of thepotential teammates she'd been given…

Natasha Romanoff (okay, she knows that surname is wrong, she'd been to Russia and learnt all the swearwords) was a Soviet superspy, almost a counterpart to Steve's super_soldier. _Codenamed the Black Widow with all the implications the name entailed, it was enough to make a girl wary. A lot of her file is blacked-out, but what little she reads is uglier than a lot of the things she'd seen in the war.

Dr. Bruce Banner's file is a little hard to swallow. She hadn't realized that there were _still _people out there who would actually try to remake the super soldier serum even after the crap they'd seen. First with her own nemesis, Schmidt. Next with Bucky and Zola. And all the other poor bastards of the 107th who were captured. And now Dr. Banner is added to the count. She wants to ask him what the _hell _he thought he was doing messing around with it, but after a while she realizes that it's not him she wants to ask, but the government. They're still trying to create an army of supersoldiers. She'd volunteered for the experiment in desperation, hoping to be allowed to help in the war, but she can't imagine a whole army of supersoldiers at the government's disposal.

She isn't sure she wants to live long enough to see that happen.

The third file she reads belongs to Anthony Stark. The strangest part about him is how little there is on him. She reads about his childhood in the limelight of the media, and sees tags of news about him and Howard. And then about his youth, which reads like a cross between a train wreck and a very bad erotic novel. Then his adulthood, which isn't much different from his adolescence until she reaches the part where she can almost see the way he split from the road he was on.

There is very little information about what happened to Anthony Stark during his disappearance. There is very little confirmation about the aftermath. All that is known is that he returned and had a complete moral turnaround. Where once he embraced the name of Merchant of Death, now he seemed to shun it completely, even going to the extent of destroying the weapons his company used to build with his mechanized body armor.

Probably the best weapon in his arsenal.

But there are very few things in the world that could change a man so completely, and so Steve needs only speculate a little. And perhaps she would feel some sympathy for a man who had his whole world upheaved, but seeing as she's had it happened to her so many times, she finds herself only a little sorry, and that only because she wouldn't wish such things on anyone. Life was a little tough on them, but against Schmidt and the war, she feels that both Dr. Banner and Anthony Stark have it easier.

They call it World War II nowadays, just as they call the time she'd lived in the Great Depression instead of just the depression. They also call her generation the Greatest Generation and the GI Generation, though she can't for the life of her see the reason for the former and only a little for the latter. 'Her' generation was just the same as any generation, far as she could see. Maybe it hadn't exactly been the most fortunate, with the depression and the war and all, but they'd had to do what they had to do to survive. Her childhood was maybe a little worse because of her health, but she'd had happy times too. She doesn't want anyone's pity, but she also doesn't want the looks of awe she gets at the SHIELD cafeteria.

She's just a little guy (gal) from Brooklyn.

As for herself, she reads the file they have on her with a little curiosity, but it degenerates into horror and confusion. The thing that Captain America has been turned into is unrecognizable to what it (_she)_ was.

She'd been a soldier, yes. She'd even go so far as to say that she'd been a good one. But wasn't that the purpose of the serum? And she'd had her men. It wasn't as if she'd been the only one fighting the war. The Howling Comandos had been a great unit, with everyone supporting each other and going through hell and back together.

She could accept being turned into a symbol—lord knows that was what Senator Brandt had been angling for—but the _magnitude _of the thing…She'd been a soldier and a successful captain and she'd tried to be a good man as per Dr. Erskine's words but…

Captain America can do no wrong? Captain America is kind and courteous and strong and gentle and smart and honorable and…

She knows she had to say cheesy things during her time as the show pony, like 'defending the American Way' and that awful song, but that was it—it was a _show. _She doesn't know how they could take anything she used to spout as truth when the only 'evidence' they had was her success in _fighting_. She can't understand how someone could get a read on her personality through her battle tactics or how she'd punched out Schmidt.

And she'd punched out _Schmidt, _not Hitler. Fact was _her _war had been more against the Red Skull than his esteemed leader. She'd never even seen the man in real life, seeing as Schmidt always operated in rural areas where he could build his labs and stuff while Hitler was busy being the face of Germany _in _Germany.

Although when she asked Agent Coulson, he'd turned a little strange and then she'd gotten Howard's files and oh lord that _bastard, _she should have known he'd haunt her even after he was gone.

It wasn't just the Captain America cards. There were Captain America comics. Captain America figurines. Captain America games and…

And Howard swearing left and right about some of the things she did and did not do and _gosh, _she hadn't realized he'd thought that well of her. And some bits he said…was he drunk when he did that press conference? She knew about absence making the heart fonder but _Jesus. _She's not a saint—she'd cussed him out when he pushed her enough. And he had a gift for pushing her.

And now she's going to meet his son and, and…well, she just hopes she doesn't fuck anything up.

xXXx

She fucked up.

She'd not been sure what to expect but hell, it was like looking at a slightly older and modern version of Howard. She'd had a picture, and yes they looked alike but their _actions. _It was like being back in the war during one of those times Howard was acting for the cameras and making a bigger ass of himself than usual. It was like talking to the public version of Howard on top of a podium from the very bottom of a very long flight of stairs.

It was like talking to a Howard…who _hated _her.

She wasn't even sure what _Tony Stark's _problem was, but it was obvious he wasn't impressed—was _determined _not to be impressed—by her. Any predisposition she had towards him for being both Howard's son and going through hell had evaporated when he'd given her a dismissive onceover and well, dismissed her.

She's never let that stand, even before the serum. The bullies in Brooklyn could attest to that.

Even Director Fury hadn't been dismissive. He was understandably skeptical, if a little blunt. But behind the very vulgar façade was a keen and cunning mind she probably couldn't match. He'd not been taken in by the image of Captain America, and didn't care much for Steve Rogers (though he knew a surprising amount about her). To him, she was muscle, command experience, and a useful image.

She could work with that.

But to _Tony Stark, _she was nothing. Apparently, she was a man out of time, _behind _times, and her heyday was over.

All because she couldn't get a reference or understand the science he spouted and called English.

Steve knows that she has a temper. She'd be tempted to say _had, _but since she doesn't have it completely under control, she knows better than to lie to herself. But she has learned patience and at least she doesn't have a _short _temper anymore.

But she's so very tired of getting called out for things that weren't her fault.

She's fought the same war a hundred times in a hundred different ways and now everyone she knows is gone. She's been dragged into this new time where she has to pick up her shield _again _for a completely different war that she didn't sign up for and whose sides are unclear _and _morally ambiguous. She has to take being under the thumb of an organization whose motive is vague and deal with the expectations everyone seems to have of Captain America.

Now she has to take some upstart asshole looking down on her for not understanding whatever he says because she wasn't around for it.

Well _fuck him. _

It's all she can do to _not _reach over and snap his neck. It's all she can do to just stand there and argue instead of picking him up with one hand and throwing him across the room. Everybody seems to think the serum did something to her personality or her mind and maybe it did—it made her a lot more prone to violence than anything. The old saying is right, power corrupts. She's had to remind herself that she didn't want to turn into a bully many times. And she's had to remind herself of Schmidt as an example of what she'd turn into.

But she's always had a temper and this fella was grinding down on her last nerve.

She's been bullied and weak and useless before, but she'd made something out of herself through sheer will—made herself _survive _through sheer will—and this, this _ass _jokes about her 'age' and her 'outdated' mannerisms (it's just plain _manners, _asshole) and how she doesn't understand what the hell he's talking about. Because she wasn't. Fucking. _There. _

There are some things that she just won't take, not from someone who's never been through a war. Not for a reason she can't help. Not from someone she doesn't even _know. _

"I've known men worth _ten of you." _

Ass.

xXXx

The fighting parts are actually the easiest parts. She has something that needs done and the tools she's been provided. As usual, she only gets a small group and the enemy has a huge army. Of aliens. Of assorted sizes.

But it's a (somewhat) familiar situation and she fires orders through the little earwig-thing—comm—in her ear (they actually _have_ that technology now) and hurls her shield around as hard as she can, keeping track of trajectory, terrain, and people, making it so that the rebound would be strong enough to ricochet off several opponents before coming to the position she'd run to and into her hands. She's in the middle of slamming another alien into the road when Iron Man comes flying over with 'the party' that's actually a giant alien flying fish-thing. Holy _fuck. _

And then Loki's ranting about something or other and Hulk goes bounding up the tower after him in that half-frog way of his and the _sky _opens up and Director Fury tells them a _nuclear missile _is heading straight towards New York City.

Thank you so much. They didn't have enough on their plate as is. She _fucking hates _politicians.

But then _Tony_ comes flying out towards the missile and he mutters over the comm about redirecting and calculations and percentages and she's trying to scream at him that _no you are not going to fucking—_

And then he's gone and they're counting the seconds because she has to count the seconds because the fucking _idiot _didn't give her any other choice took the choice right out of her hands and the only thing she can do now is wait and give him time to make it back and hope he makes it back _alive. _

_Fucking Stark. Both of them. _

Later on the newspapers will read like some strange fantastical story, with Iron Man descending like God's sweet angel from the eye of the storm in the sky and Hulk reaching out and catching him like a princess as he fell. But in truth he plummeted down the same manner a stone drops when released and all the way towards the _concrete sidewalk _with _increasing speed_. If Hulk hadn't snagged him and cushioned the fall, he would have splattered all over the ground like an egg—super titanium-gold alloy armor be damned.

She is _really _sick of people acting like their invincible when they're so much squishier than her.

And even after he'd been safely laid on the ground, he'd been completely still and silent. She'd wanted to reach out and shake him but couldn't bring herself to. Until Hulk roared and gave her a heart attack and apparently, the kickstart Tony's metal one needed.

Goddamned Starks and their goddamned recklessness and cockroach-like tenacity.

If she weren't a supersoldier she'd probably be grey before she turned thirty.

* * *

**So I skipped through the whole movie. Oh well. And I suck at fight scenes. Oh well.**

**In any case, I hope you enjoyed this and feel free to give me feedback/ideas/criticisms.**

**Memory25**


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